A roundup of stuff I consumed this week. Published weekly(ish).
Whoever your graphic design portfolio site is aimed at, you have to remember that people’s time and attention is limited. Employers, to take one example, may look at dozens of portfolios in the space of 10 minutes. So you only have a few seconds to really grab their attention and enthuse them.
—8 great graphic design portfolio sites for 2018
Paying for more than 3,500 daily drinks for six years, it turns out, is expensive. The NIH would need more funding—and soon, a team stepped up to the plate. The Foundation of the NIH, a little-known 20-year-old non-profit that calls on donors to support NIH science, was talking to alcohol corporations. By the fall of 2014, the study was relying on the industry for “separate contributions to the Foundation of the NIH beyond what the NIAAA could afford,” as Mukamal put it in an e-mail to a prospective collaborator. Later that year, Congress encouraged the NIH to sponsor the study, but lawmakers didn’t provide any money. Five corporations—Anheuser-Busch InBev, Diageo, Pernod Ricard, Heineken, and Carlsberg—have since provided a total of $67 million. The foundation is seeking another $23 million, according to its director of development, Julie Wolf-Rodda.
—A MASSIVE HEALTH STUDY ON BOOZE, BROUGHT TO YOU BY BIG ALCOHOL
When Starbucks (SBUX) announced that it was closing its Teavana tea line and wanted to shutter all of its stores, mall operator Simon Property Group (SPG) countered with a lawsuit. Simon cited in part the effect the store closures might have on other mall tenants.
Earlier this month, a judge upheld Simons' suit, ordering Teavana to keep 77 of its stores open.
—America's malls are rotting away
The Dots claims to have a quarter of a million members and current clients include Google, Burberry, Sony Pictures, Viacom, M&C Saatchi, Warner Music, Tate, Discovery Networks and VICE amongst others.
—Aiming to be the LinkedIn for creatives, The Dots raises £4m
The Cboe's bitcoin futures fell 10 percent Wednesday, triggering a two-minute trading halt early Wednesday afternoon.
—Bitcoin futures briefly halted after plunging 10%
Through a very clever scheme, the people behind Tether can continue to send Bitcoin into the stratosphere until it reaches a not-yet-known breaking point.
—Bitcoin Only Has One Way To Go If This Is True
—Bitcoin Price Dilemma: Bull and Bear Paths in Play
"He is being a huge assh*le and avoiding you so it literally forces you to be the one to break up with him because he's too much of a coward to do it himself. GOD, I HATE GUYS."
—"Breakup Ghosting" Is the Most Cowardly Way to End a Relationship
—Britain rejected the EU, and the EU is loving its new life
“Although the science is still evolving, there are concerns among some public health professionals and members of the public regarding long-term, high use exposure to the energy emitted by cellphones,” Dr. Karen Smith, CDPH Director and State Public Health Officer, said in a statement.
—California Warns People to Limit Exposure to Cellphones
There is a way CSS can get its hands on data in HTML, so long as that data is within an attribute on that HTML element.
—The CSS attr() function got nothin’ on custom properties
“The recent coverage of AI as a single, unified power is a predictable upshot of a self-aggrandizing Silicon Valley culture that believes it can summon a Godhead,” says Thomas Arnold
—Former Google and Uber engineer is developing an AI 'god'
Here are two facts: 1) Throughout the tail end of Matt Lauer’s tenure at NBC’s Today, ABC’s Good Morning America beat it in the ratings, and 2) In the two weeks since Lauer was kicked to the curb for sexual misconduct and replaced by Hoda Kotb, Today’s viewership has surpassed GMA’s by a considerable margin.
Here are two opinions: 1) No one ever really liked Matt Lauer, but tolerated him as you would a friend you’ve known for 20 years but have nothing in common with anymore, 2) Hota Kotb makes everything better.
—A Funny Thing Is Happening to Today Now That Matt Lauer Is Gone: Its Ratings Are Going Up
The game challenges you to build an empire that stands the test of time, taking your civilization from the Stone Age to the Information Age as you wage war, conduct diplomacy, advance your culture, and go head-to-head with history’s greatest leaders.
—Get the newest game in 'Sid Meier’s Civilization' series for 50% off
Amazingly, despite the mind control and hypnosis, the girl resisted being totally drawn into her father’s “cult of three.” But she suffered from self-loathing and took to self-harm as a coping mechanism.
—Girl’s father tortured her for a decade to make her ‘superhuman’
The most searched for dog breed was the golden retriever.
—Google's top searches for 2017: Matt Lauer, Hurricane Irma and more
"A few months ago, I started collecting stories from people about their real experiences with loneliness. I started small, asking my immediate network to share with their friends/family, and was flooded with submissions from people of all ages and walks of life.
"The Loneliness Project is an interactive web archive I created to present and give these stories a home online. I believe in design as a tool to elevate others' voices. Stories have tremendous power to spark empathy, and I believe that the relationship between design and emotion only strengthens this power.
—Graphic designer tackles issue of wide-spread loneliness in moving campaign
While the Windows 10 OpenSSH software is currently in Beta, it still works really well. Especially the client as you no longer need to use a 3rd party SSH client such as Putty when you wish to connect to a SSH server.
—Here's How to Enable the Built-In Windows 10 OpenSSH Client
In America we have settled on patterns of land use that might as well have been designed to prevent spontaneous encounters, the kind out of which rich social ties are built.
—How our housing choices make adult friendships more difficult
Today was "Break the Internet" day, in which many websites altered their appearance and urged visitors to contact members of Congress about the pending repeal (see the gallery above for examples from Reddit, Kickstarter, GitHub, Mozilla, and others).
—How Reddit and others “broke the Internet” to support net neutrality today
“He’s the Usain Bolt of business for Jamaica,” Richards said. “For each Jamaican immigrant, Lowell Hawthorne is me, he’s you. He was the soul of Jamaica, the son of our soil, and all of our struggles were identified with him.”
—How the Jamaican patty king made it to the top — before ending it all
—How to break a CAPTCHA system in 15 minutes with Machine Learning
After the trap has snapped shut, the plant turns it into an external stomach, sealing the trap so no air gets in or out. Glands produce enzymes that digest the insect, first the exoskeleton made of chitin, then the nitrogen-rich blood, which is called hemolyph.
The digestion takes several days depending on the size of the insect, and then the leaf re-opens. By that time, the insect is a "shadow skeleton" that is easily blown away by the wind.
—How the Venus Flytrap Kills and Digests Its Prey
Back at The Shed, Phoebe has arrived. She's an intuitive waitress who can really get across the nuances of our menu, like how – by serving pudding in mugs – we're aiming to replicate the experience of what it's like to eat pudding out of a mug.
—I Made My Shed the Top Rated Restaurant On TripAdvisor
In order to create a candlestick chart, you must have a data set that contains open, high, low and closevalues for each time period you want to display. The hollow or filled portion of the candlestick is called “the body” (also referred to as “the real body”). The long thin lines above and below the body represent the high/low range and are called “shadows” (also referred to as “wicks” and “tails”). The high is marked by the top of the upper shadow and the low by the bottom of the lower shadow.
—Introduction to Candlesticks
The object in question is ‘Oumuamua, an asteroid from another star system currently zipping past Jupiter at about 196,000 miles per hour, too fast to be trapped by the sun’s gravitational pull. First discovered in mid-October by astronomers at the Pan-STARRS project at the University of Hawaii, the 800-meter-long, 80-meter-wide, cigar-shaped rock is, technically speaking, weird as hell—and that’s precisely why some scientists think it’s not a natural object.
—Is This Cigar-Shaped Asteroid Watching Us?
I tried out LinkedIn Career Advice and Bumble Bizz over the course of a work week and compared them in terms of how easy they are to use and the kind of people they introduce you to.
—I tried LinkedIn's career advice app vs. dating app Bumble's version and discovered major flaws with both
“The Bitcoin dream is all but dead,” I wrote.
—I Was Wrong About Bitcoin. Here’s Why.
—Jessen's Orthogonal Icosahedron
In the study, depressed patients who got an infusion of ketamine reported rapid relief from suicidal thoughts—many as soon as a few hours after receiving the drug.
—Ketamine Relieved Suicidal Thoughts Within Hours in Hospital Study
We are trying to create an Open Source Website that searches through an open database of Interactive Maps focused on learning in a linear way. It leverages all of world’s knowledge in a unique way. It takes the Wikipedia model of curating knowledge but applies it to curating links in a meaningful and visual way.
—Learn Anything White Paper
"It was a very new word [in 1841]," Sokolowski said. "[Noah Webster’s] definition is not the definition that you and I would understand today. His definition was, 'The qualities of females,' so basically feminism to Noah Webster meant femaleness. We do see evidence that the word was used in the 19th century in a medical sense, for the physical characteristics of a developing teenager, before it was used as a political term, if you will."
—Merriam-Webster's word of the year for 2017: 'Feminism'
The Wall Street Journal issued a new note on its style blog earlier this week, suggesting the publication not write about millennials with such disdain.
"What we usually mean is young people, so we probably should just say that," the new WSJ note reads. "Many of the habits and attributes of millennials are common for people in their 20s, with or without a snotty term."
—'Millennials': Be Careful How We Use This Label
As of writing, the CoinDesk's Bitcoin Price Index (BPI) is at $16,743 levels. The world's largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has appreciated 0.72 percent in the last 24 hours, going by CoinMarketCap data.
—No Stopping? After New High, Bitcoin Price Eyes $20k
People who tested as being more conscientious but less open were more sensitive to typos, while those with less agreeable personalities got more upset by grammatical errors.
"Perhaps because less agreeable people are less tolerant of deviations from convention," the researchers wrote.
Interestingly, how neurotic someone was didn't affect how they interpreted mistakes.
—People Who Constantly Point Out Grammar Mistakes Are Pretty Much Jerks, Scientists Find
Hydrogen particles are made up of an electron and a proton. Exciton particles, then, are made up of an electron that’s escaped and the negative space it left behind when it did so. The hole actually acts like a particle, attracting the escaped electron and bonding with it; they orbit each other the same way an electron and a proton would.
—PHYSICS BREAKTHROUGH: NEW FORM OF MATTER, EXCITONIUM, FINALLY PROVED TO EXIST AFTER 50-YEAR SEARCH
For reasons that people are now trying to determine, this weekend the internet turned its collective gaze to a short story called “Cat Person.”
Response to the story has varied from praise for its relatability to flat dismissal to jokes about how everyone is talking about a—Who’da thunk it?—short story of all things.
—The reaction to “Cat Person” shows how the internet can even ruin fiction
—Repeal Day Poster – Summit Brewing Co.
[Dr. Simon Bramhall of the UK] pleaded guilty to charges that he etched his initials, “SB,” onto the livers of two transplant patients with an argon beam in 2013. Bramhall admitted the assaults in a hearing in Birmingham crown court on Wednesday, according to several news outlets.
—SB WUZ HERE: Surgeon pleads guilty to burning initials into patients’ organs
I get what you’re doing. Really, I do. You’re trying to shit on people’s musical tastes to either appear more well-versed in music than them or you just want to see the shocked look on people’s faces as you besmirch their favorite band. And listen, I don’t blame you for either. They’re both fun activities that I partake in on the reg. If you name me a band you like, I will find a hundred different ways to judge you on your taste. If the band happens to feature a white guy with dreads, make it three hundred. But The Beatles, dude? The fucking Beatles? You are really scraping the barrel if you are knocking people for liking The Beatles, you moron.
—Shut Your Dumb, Stupid Mouth about the Beatles Being Overrated
—Sonakinatography I Movement #III for Multi-Media
The font the menu is written in can convey similar messages; for instance an italic typeface conveys a perception of quality. But using elaborate fonts that are hard to read could also have another effect – it could alter how the food itself tastes.
A study conducted by researchers in Switzerland found that a wine labelled with a difficult-to-read script was liked more by drinkers than the same wine carrying a simpler typeface. Spence’s own research has also found that consumers often associate rounder typefaces with sweeter tastes, while angular fonts tend to convey a salty, sour or bitter experience.
—The secret tricks hidden inside restaurant menus
On Allison Benedikt, Lorin Stein, and the perils of extracting universal principles from fairytale endings...
“My career, at the time, was in his hands,” Allison Benedikt wrote at Slate this week, about the beginning of her relationship with John Cook, her husband of 14 years. They were colleagues at a magazine when they first kissed, and he was her senior. That kiss took place “on the steps of the West 4th subway station,” Benedikt writes, and Cook did it “without first getting [her] consent.” The piece is an intervention into the conversation on office sexual harassment, with Benedikt fearing “the consequences of overcorrection” on this issue.
—So You Married Your Flirty Boss
“We encourage the use of Teslas for commercial purposes and we’ll work proactively with these customers to find charging solutions that work best for them,” the statement said.
—Tesla Tells New Taxi, Uber Drivers Not to Use Its Superchargers
The deep web refers to anything you can’t access in a search engine, either because it’s protected behind a password or because it’s buried deep within a regular website. The dark web is a subsection of the deep web that you can only access with a special browser like Tor to mask your IP address.
—Things You Can Do on the Dark Web That Aren't Illegal
—This Graphic Explains Just How Crazy The Cryptocurrency Bubble Is
One such study published in the journal Neuroimage and highlighted on PsyBlog actually found that some forms of daydreaming cause measurable changes in the brain. This suggests that, done right, daydreaming actually requires attention and control.
—This Is the Correct Way to Daydream, According to a Harvard Psychiatrist
"VR can be stored in the brain's memory center in ways that are strikingly similar to real-world physical experiences," said Stanford's Bailenson, author of the forthcoming book "Experience on Demand," about his two decades of research on the psychological effects of virtual reality. "When VR is done well, the brain believes it is real."
—The very real health dangers of virtual reality
Respect for children means respect for the adults that they will one day become; it means helping them to the knowledge, skills, and social graces that they will need if they are to be respected in that wider world where they will be on their own and no longer protected. For the teacher, respect for children means giving them whatever one has by way of knowledge, teaching them to distinguish real knowledge from mere opinion, and introducing them to the subjects that make the mind adaptable to the unforeseen.
—The Virtue of Irrelevance
—You Will Lose Your Job to a Robot—and Sooner Than You Think
—Jessen's Orthogonal Icosahedron
